


Busy, Confusing, Alive

by slotumn



Series: Wherever the Wind May Take Us [23]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Cake, Birthday Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Idiots in Love, Implied Sexual Content, Married Couple, Married Life, Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22794277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slotumn/pseuds/slotumn
Summary: Lysithea's 26th birthday, and Claude's attempts at handling a Morfisian oven.A.K.A. They're married and settling down and thinking about having kids.
Relationships: Lysithea von Ordelia/Claude von Riegan
Series: Wherever the Wind May Take Us [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593274
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Busy, Confusing, Alive

Settling down in Morfis was no easy task. 

There were so many documents to go through, gadgets to learn to use, systems to navigate, and it baffled him to think that the general populace just...lived handling all that, every day. War and politics were also complex, sure, but they also weren't day-to-day affairs for average people. But in the metropolis of magic, every aspect of everyone's life had the potential to be overloaded with information-- there was absolutely no escaping it.

No wonder Morfisians suffered from high rates of burnout and depression. 

Still, nobody here actively hated them because they were foreigners, the extensive infrastructures that benefitted the general public was nothing short of impressive, and most importantly, this city's magical advancement had saved the love of his life.

You gain some, you lose some, they said-- and in his opinion, the gains (especially the last one) far outweighed the losses. 

Now only if he could figure out how in the hell buttons on this oven worked...

\---

She woke up to the smell of burnt sugar and starch wafting into the bedroom.

Her husband wasn't in the bed next to her, as he usually was. 

"...Claude?"

The call was met with him yelling "Just a sec, I'm coming!" and crashing noises from the kitchen. Some moments later, he walked into the room, wearing a proud smile and carrying a bed tray full of breakfast. 

"Wha...what's this about?"

"It's a special day, so I thought you'd like breakfast in bed."

She stared at him in legitimate confusion. 

"Don't tell me you forgot...twenty-eigth of Pegasus Moon, or, I guess it's called February here."

"..."

Still nothing. Claude kissed her on the cheek. 

"Happy twenty-sixth birthday, Lys."

Her eyes widened.

"Right, my birthday! How could I have forgotten?"

"It happens, especially when you're busy with life and everything adulthood has to throw at you," he said, then grinned a big shit-eating grin. "Sooo, congratulations on finally becoming a real grown-up?"

"Hmph, of course," she said, pulling him into a kiss on the lips, "and instead of pouting at that like a child, I'm going to ask like a very mature adult...as to what exactly you were doing in the kitchen."

A noise halfway between coughing and laughing came out of his throat. 

"Haha, uh, making the food in front of you...?"

She stuffed a fluffy, golden brown, syrup-lathered pancake piece into her mouth. 

"'S delishs," she muttered, then remembered it wasn't good manners to talk with a full mouth and swallowed it down, "but that doesn't quite smell like pancakes...I smell a bit of chocolate, coffee, cream, and...did you use the oven?"

The nervous laughter intensified.

"Well, you'll find out once you finish that and come on out to see! Now, excuse me while I put a little extra finishing touch for this special scheme..."

And with that, he swiftly backed out of the doorway.

She shrugged and decided it wouldn't be too bad to let him clean up whatever mess he made out there. 

\---

Little less than half an hour later, the kitchen and utensils were all squeaky clean, the unfortunate burnt messes from his previous tries were safely in the food waste bin, and his masterpiece was all ready to present.

"Ta-dah~"

Lysithea circled around the table with sparkling eyes, examining the lily and fruit-adorned tiramisu from every angle. 

"Wow, it's...beautiful. You really made this yourself?" 

"You bet. I was always good with my hands."

"..."

"...Didn't mean it that way, but sure, what you're thinking counts, too."

"Claude!"

He laughed, knowing he must have hit the mark from the way her face flared up. 

"Okay, to be honest, I had to look up one of those moving pict-- videos for a tutorial on how to make the icing lilies, and all the buttons on that oven gave me a hard time...but it worked out in the end, right?"

His wife spun around, jumped into his arms, and gave a tight hug as she buried her face into his shoulders. 

"Thank you," she whispered. "I'm not good at saying things out loud, but...it really means the world to me that you go out of your way to do all this for me. Especially today."

"You're welcome. And, well, I'm just glad that you're still here with me."

"...Love you."

"Love you, too."

The Agarthan bastards said she wouldn't live past twenty-five at most.

Well, look at us now, he thought, we've outlived your entire civilization _and_ we're living somewhere with technology as advanced as yours, except we don't have to hide underground like little bitches.

A finger poking his cheek brought him back to reality from the reminiscing.

"So...now that we're done with all that, can we eat it yet?"

"Hold on," he said, then searched through one of the cabinets for a bunch of thin candles-- twenty-six, to be exact. "I heard it's tradition around these parts to put the same number of candles as your age on the cake, light it, and blow it out while making a wish. Shall we try it?"

She stared at the cake with a hint of worry.

"...I don't think we can fit everything on there without damaging the decorations. Unless?"

"We can stick them to the sides."

"Yes! That should work."

\---

A rather unconventional birthday candle lighting (with fire magic) and blowing (with wind magic) later, the two of them took out all the candles and cut up the tiramisu into pieces to eat along with their choice of tea as they worked throughout the day. 

"You can go rest if you want, you know," he kept saying, apparently feeling guilty about having her power through pages of documents and making "holoconference calls" on her birthday. 

"Please, I've had to go to battle on my birthday before. And I'm not as frail as I was back then," she said, giving him yet another quick kiss on the cheek, "so there's no need to worry."

He stroked her hair and smiled, as usual, and it gave her butterflies, as usual. 

"So...what did you wish for back there, exactly?"

"It's no fun if I tell you outright."

He raised an eyebrow while checking the "electronic mailbox" on the screen in front of him.

"Hmm...looks like I'm rubbing off on you. I'll have to work extra hard to fluster you from now on."

"And I'm rubbing off on you, so you better watch out before I start catching things to tease you about, Claude."

"Noted. But really, tell me if there's anything else I can do for you today."

She considered that for a moment, then cocked her head at an angle to look up at him through her eyelashes.

"...Well, there is one particular gift I want from you later. It has to do with why you shouldn't tire yourself out by taking on all the workload alone."

"Oh? And that would be?"

A devilish smile effortlessly made its way to her lips.

"A baby, of course."

And when he did more of that cough-laughing along with a fluster, she felt quite proud of herself.

...At least until he calmed down and pointed out, "Hey, wait, you asked for the same thing two weeks ago, on the Day of Devotion! Forgetting that repeating the same tactics in a row gives your opponent an advantage, are we?"

"B-be quiet, Claude, I definitely saw you get red for a moment there! I claim victory on this one!"

"Not when you get even redder afterwards! But, I definitely don't mind giving you that particular gift for today. Or any day. Or is it night?"

She buried her face into her hands as way too many ("digital") pages auto-scrolled down right in front of her. 

"Goddess help me..."

"Help you go through those documents faster, I hope, since I'm already motivated to do the same, Goddess or not!"

"Alright, alright, now stop trying to embarrass me on my birthday!"

\---

"...Now, provided this did work, I guess we can expect the kid around...Ethereal Moon or Guardian Moon. What did they call it here?"

"December and January. That's right around when the Heritage Center's going to open, if all the documents get processed in time."

"Looks like we'll have a lot on our hands. You think you'll be able to handle it, Lys?"

"Of course. It's not like we'll be lacking in assistance, with all these homunculus...robot things around to help."

"You really like those, don't you. Do they remind you of dolls you used to play with or something?"

"Claude!!!"

\---

A pair of twenty-somethings trying to settle down in a land far away from their own, were definitely guaranteed to have a difficult time.

But for how busy and confusing things could get, it was definitely worth it, especially on special occasions like these, where they got to hold each other at the end of a long day while murmuring their plans and hopes for the future.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not so heartless as to write angst for a birthday fic lol
> 
> Wanted to capture how these two would be like years into their relationship, including little details like how they rub off on each other and how their collective smartness wraps around to being weird like with that candle thing (but they don't realize their weird tendencies when a third party isn't there to point it out)
> 
> Some headcanons:  
> -I'd like to think high Dex growth rates literally translates to being good with, or catching on quickly to handy/crafty things, so that means Claude and Lysithea are both pretty skilled in that department  
> -Claude is normally pretty good at cooking; it's just the weird buttons on the Morfis ovens giving him trouble  
> -The reason why they're settling down when they're 26 and 28 respectively instead of earlier is because they spent the past three years traveling around the world and documenting various cultures  
> -All the documents they're going through is for that "Heritage Center" mentioned at the very end-- the full name is "Worldwide Cultural Connection and Heritage Center," and the purpose is exactly what it sounds like: to document how people live around the world and hopefully help people understand groups with different ways of life from them  
> -TL;DR Claude and Lysithea are trying to open and run an anthropology museum/research center


End file.
